Ipswitch Study Reveals Rapid Adoption of Intelligent Systems is Creating Complexities for IT Teams and Changing How We Work

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88 per cent of IT professionals say their business is adopting intelligent systems, but over three quarters say assessing the extent of internal and external threats is hard or challenging

London, UK – 10 October, 2016 – Research from Ipswitch, the leader in easy to try, buy and use IT and network management software, shows that fast track deployment of intelligent systems is well underway. 88% of IT professionals saying their organisation has already invested in one or more intelligent solutions, from bots, through smart business applications, to full-blown expert systems. However, the study also shows that over three quarters (78%) of IT professionals are struggling with assessing the full extent of the challenges and threats of deploying intelligent systems themselves, and managing the impact of broader intelligent technology use across their industries and customer bases.

Almost a fifth (19%) report it being ‘extremely hard’ to assess the threats and challenges, and almost two thirds (59%) report it as a ‘challenge’. The independent global study, carried out by analyst firm Freeform Dynamics explores the fast-paced adoption of intelligent machines and business systems (machines and software with decision making and learning capabilities) in the commercial world.

Adoption of intelligent systems is increasingly seen as a key competitive marketplace differentiator, with over a third (35%) of IT decision makers already saying the ability to exploit intelligent systems is critical to enabling their business to compete successfully over the next three years.

Three quarters of respondents (75%) are utilising intelligent systems to marshal and manage increasingly complex networks and IT system infrastructures. The research shows that:

20% are using autonomous bots and electronic assistants to help staff or customers interact with systems more naturally – a further 27% plan to do so in the next year

Over a quarter (26%) already have IoT initiatives underway – and 29% have deployments on the horizon

28% are utilising expert decision support systems to optimise how professional staff work – 35% will introduce these soon

Working in the Dark: Managing the Complexity of Intelligent Systems on the Network

Despite the fact that many IT professionals acknowledge the significant commercial and operational benefits of intelligent systems, and the way adoption is trending among partners, competitors and customers, they are concerned about the ability of IT teams to counter the potential risks such technologies pose:

Over half (54%) say their current analysis and visualisation capabilities will struggle to keep up with the broader march of intelligent systems

55% say their ability to visualise data in a clear and actionable manner falls short of what they need

Almost three quarters (71%) say that making sense of logs and other event data generated is proving extremely demanding

Over a third (39%) also recognise that, regardless of their firm’s plans to use intelligent systems, the impact of other organisations’ use will be a major consideration for their own infrastructure. For instance:

One in five (20%) say that increased activity from third party bots, agents and IoT accessing systems is already making it hard to monitor, track and govern systems and 42% say they believe it is a future risk

One fifth (20%) say that increased ‘noise’ on the network is already making it harder to detect malicious activity

17% say that automated or bot traffic creates network quality of service issues

20% also say that automated or bot access to APIs is already causing system or application performance issues

Future Proofing the Network

Rob Farmer, EMEA Senior Director Partner and Alliances at Ipswitch commented: “The study findings show that out of date monitoring approaches are adding to the risk management burden experienced by IT professionals. Less than a third (28%) of respondents had strong and future proof monitoring, analysis and management tools in place to help manage the impact of intelligent systems, and just a quarter (25%) were confident about the capabilities of their performance monitoring and operational analytics tools. Meanwhile, less than a fifth (18%) said their ability to manage the identities of internet-connected ‘things’ was strong and future proofed.”

“Today’s IT professionals are struggling to keep up with the fast-paced rate of technological changes and formulating relevant strategies and plans to tackle the impact of intelligent systems is proving a make or break challenge. IT teams should strive to monitor bandwidth usage by application, user and device to determine how much is used by each entity and whether it is for authorised purposes or not. Deploying proactive monitoring and visualisation tools for high priority assets, with threshold alerts for critical resources, is becoming a must for assuring the availability and reliability of mission-critical networks, servers and business applications in the face of an unending wave of new technologies that require increasingly large amounts of high quality bandwidth.”

Tony Lock, Distinguished Analyst at Freeform Dynamics added: “When it comes to the impact of intelligent systems on IT teams, considering internal deployments is of course important. Regardless of what you do internally, however, your network monitoring and management tools will increasingly have to cope with external traffic and threats stemming from other people’s use of intelligent technologies. There really is no escaping.”

The full report entitled “Intelligent Systems in Action: The Rise of the Machines Has Already Begun”, together with an infographic is available for download here.

ENDS

Survey Methodology

Sponsored by Ipswitch and designed and executed by Freeform Dynamics, the online survey was conducted with 521 IT decision makers (IT manager/director, IT security specialist, IT professional) in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Australia and Singapore to ascertain the current adoption and use of intelligent systems within their organisation. Respondents were drawn from organisations ranging in size from 100-5000+ employees and operating in a range of vertical markets (Financial Services, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Retail, High Tech, Telco, Research & Education, Pharma and Public Services).

About Ipswitch

Today’s hard-working IT teams are relied upon to manage increasing complexity and deliver near-zero downtime. Ipswitch IT and network management software helps them succeed by enabling secure control of business transactions, applications and infrastructure. Ipswitch software is powerful, flexible and easy to try, buy and use. The company’s software helps teams shine by delivering 24/7 performance and security across cloud, virtual and network environments. Ipswitch powers more than 150,000 networks spanning 168 countries, and is based in Lexington, Mass., with offices throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. For more information please visit www.ipswitch.com, or connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

About Freeform Dynamics

Freeform Dynamics is an IT industry analyst firm. Through our research and insights, we aim to help busy IT and business professionals get up to speed on the latest technology developments, and make better informed investment decisions. For more information, and access to our library of free research, please visit www.freeformdynamics.com.